Herman Melville (Volume 2, Episode 9, Part 1)

September 25, 2017 Phil Gibbons Leave a comment

Herman Melville: From obscurity to immortality

When he died at age 72, on September 28, 1891, Herman Melville was so obscure that those who even remembered his literary output presumed that he had passed away many decades earlier. Melville’s works were out of print, his last novel published more than thirty years before his death. The title of his epic work Moby Dick was misspelled in Melville’s New York Times obituary and one of his most respected efforts, “Billy Budd, Sailor,” had not even been published.

Elizabeth Shaw Melville, Melville’s Wife

Despite the initial Shaw family misgivings about how their future son-in-law would make a living as a writer, Herman Melville and Elizabeth Shaw were married in Boston, in August of 1847. They became permanent residents of New York City and the writer spent the next few years grinding out a succession of books.

Packing off his family to his in-laws in Boston, in October, 1856, Melville first set out for Glasgow and then Liverpool and a meeting with his friend, now diplomat, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Their reunion was friendly even warm but Hawthorne’s journal entries, while empathetic, depict Melville as a conflicted, lost soul.

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Podcasts

Herman Melville (Volume 2, Episode 9, Part 2)

September 25, 2017 Phil Gibbons Leave a comment

Herman Melville: From Obscurity to Immortality

Over forty, Melville need not be concerned with actually having to fight for the Union but in 1863, he and his wife decided to move back to New York City, exchanging Arrowhead, which he was unable to sell, for his brother Allan’s East 26^thStreet home.

Herman Melville, Last Photograph, Mid-1880’s

Throughout this time period, Melville continued to toil away at his custom’s officer’s job. When he began working at the Customs House in 1866 he took a horse drawn streetcar to work. By the 1880’s, so much time had passed that Melville took the Third Avenue El, an elevated railway, to his office on the Upper East Side.

Melville would remain in this position until his resignation on December 31, 1885. By that time, his wife had inherited a considerable amount of money from an aunt and other relatives, enough to allow Herman to retire.

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Podcast Book and Music Information and Purchase

Herman Melville (Volume 2, Episode 9) Bibliographical And Music Information

September 25, 2017 Phil Gibbons Leave a comment

Much of the material for this podcast came from:

Herman Melville: His World And Work, by Andrew Delbanco

Melville: His World and Work

Also: Herman Melville A to Z: The Essential Reference To His Life And Work

Herman Melville A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work (Critical Companion) by Carl Rollyson (2001-01-03)

Music selections for this podcast included:

Erik Satie: Gymnopedie Number 3, by Kevin MacLeod

and

Waltz of the Renegade by Art of Escapism

Podcasts

Ted Ngoy, The Donut King Of Southern California, (Volume 2, Episode 8)

September 1, 2017 Phil Gibbons 1 Comment

Ted Ngoy, the ultimate American Dream, including donuts

Ted Ngoy’s First Donut Shop, La Habra, California

Eventually, in 1976, one of Ted’s customers showed him an ad in the local newspaper, the Orange County Register, advertising a donut shop for sale. Ngoy had meticulously saved 20,000 dollars, the seller financed the rest of the $45,000 purchase price.

Ted and his wife, Suganthini, with Richard Nixon

By 1985, Ted was a millionaire and a very respected member of the Cambodian community. He and his wife moved into a 7,000 square foot home in Mission Viejo and Ngoy became active in the Orange County Republican Party.

Most media accounts of Ted Ngoy end sometime around 2014. It’s hard to keep up with an individual so far away from the western press, even in the age of the internet. But, judging from his Facebook page, he is alive and surviving quite well. His “photos” page features him, a man in his seventies, with a much younger and beautiful woman who he began dating when she was in her teens. Judging from the photo they seem quite happy.